Ex-drug chief held on bribery charge

MEXICAN authorities have detained the country’s former drug czar on suspicion that he may have accepted $450,000 (€357,000) a month in bribes from drug traffickers, Mexico’s attorney general said yesterday.

Noe Ramirez Mandujano was in charge from 2006 until this August of the attorney general’s office that specialises in combating organised crime.

Ramirez is accused of meeting with members of a drug cartel while he was in office and agreeing to provide information on investigations in exchange for the bribes, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza said.